CSR seminar - New Waveform Design for Integrated Sensing and Communications

 

Bio: Pei Xiao is a professor of Wireless Communications at the Institute for Communication Systems, home of 5GIC and 6GIC at the University of Surrey. He is the technical manager of 5GIC/6GIC, leading the research team in the new physical layer work area, and coordinating/supervising research activities across all the work areas (https://www.surrey.ac.uk/institute-communication-systems/5g-6g-innovation-centre). He has published extensively in the fields of communication theory, RF and antenna design, signal processing for wireless communications.

Professor Xiao’s research focuses on next-generation wireless technologies, with a specific emphasis on IoT applications, satellite communications, and high-mobility vehicular networks. A key aspect of his work involves innovative waveform designs for integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), which enable seamless integration of sensing and communication functionalities. His contributions have significantly reduced hardware complexity and enhanced radio resource utilization through advanced signal processing techniques. Additionally, he has played a pivotal role in advancing sparse code multiple access (SCMA) systems, driving improvements in connectivity and spectrum efficiency for 5G networks and beyond.

Affiliation: Institute for Communication Systems (ICS), Home for 5GIC & 6GIC, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, United Kingdom.

 

Some IoT devices are sensors performing tasks such as environmental monitoring, motion detection, location tracking, and surveillance monitoring. The advent of integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) technology opens up great opportunities for such kind of IoT applications by allowing the sensor data to be directly transmitted by the sensor itself, rather than needing separate communication modules. This significantly reduces the hardware cost and power consumption, and maximizes the utilization of radio resources. In this talk, we first look at the advantages of chirp-based multicarrier systems such as orthogonal chirp division multiplexing (OCDM), fractional Fourier transform (FrFT) based multicarrier and affine frequency division multiplexing (AFDM) over orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) in the ISAC scenarios. This is followed by the introduction of AFDM-empowered sparse code multiple access (SCMA) system, referred to as AFDM-SCMA, for supporting Satellite IoT applications and vehicular communications which require massive connectivity in high-mobility environments. Finally, we will discuss the research challenges and envisaged solutions for 6G integrated sensing and communications.